Friday, February 18th, 2011

Le Fil

Today I went up for another training session in the mountains. I have always wanted to do the ice route Le Fil à Plomb on the north facing snow, rock and ice face between Aiguille du Midi and Aiguille du Plan. It’s not a very hard route, but the last few seasons it has not been in when I have been here – until this season.

So I though I have to give it a try. I got my good friend Bjarne Salhén with me (his first alpine climb ever) and I thought we might as well spice the day up a little bit and bring our skis with us and try to find some good skiing on the way down.

The crux of the route is the ice fall in the centre of the photo…

It all went well and the day even got social as we met some really nice, soon to be, Swiss guides on the route. The route was in good conditions although I guess a bit physically harder than the last few weeks due to the snowfall the other day. After topping out we kept on going towards Aiguille du Plan to ski the glacier on the south side towards Valle Blanche. And after a really good climb we got some great powder turns!

Thanks Bjarne for a great day, and man, damn you are though!

Folks, check out his video blog on endlessflow.posterous.com

Its always nice to meet cool people in the mountains!

Us and the Swiss guys on the crux pitch (Photo: Thor Husted, from a parapente)

The Swiss friends again…

Bjarne climbing

Bjarne Topping out

Snow swimming

A few minutes later

Aiguille du Midi

Ok Bjarne, topping out for the last time

The reward (yes, this is the way skiers think)

The first turns for the day

Me doing a sketchy traverse…

Bjarne skiing

Bjarne, English fashion with climbing helmet

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

Powder season is back! Great skiing in Courmayeur, but where did the winter go?

This morning I went over with Felix to Courmayeur to resume the delayed powder season. We found great dry powder all morning, but as the day went by it got warmer and warmer and of course more and more dangerous.

The best unskied big faces got impossible to ski safely in the afternoon so we ended the day early and went to enjoy more Italian coffee!

It seems like a weather habit this season that it’s warm on powder days… Will we get to enjoy good safe (relatively speaking) pow skiing even in the afternoon this season?

Thanks Felix!

Morning coffee in La Palud

Felix Hentz tries to remember what its like to ski good snow!

And again…

Usch!

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

New Ernest mag is out!

The new issue of Chamonix based Ernest Magazine is out, to check it out – Click here!

Monday, February 14th, 2011

No money, no girl, no job…

My friend Tracy Lenard is living in Japan and sent me this photo… I let it speak for many of us…

Monday, February 14th, 2011

More Médonnet

Bjarne Sahlén

Carl Granlund

Michelle and Heather takes a beer break

Sunday, February 13th, 2011

Les Marécottes – Wonderful spring skiing in one of Switzerland’s hidden gems

Between Chamonix and Martigny you will find a small picturesque village called Les Marecottes with its own little ski resort. Its an awesome place to go on powder days and with most of the skiing facing the sun its serves up with great spring skiing on warm days.

Yesterday was a warm (for being winter) beautiful day and I went to this favourite with a few friends from home that where here for the weekend. We had a great day skiing perfect corn and exploring the nice short couloirs of the area!

Thanks Björn, Karl, Pelle och Micke!

To know more about this really good but small ski area – check www.marecottes.ch

Micke, Björta, Pelle och Karl in one of the couloirs

Carl skiing

Björn

Carl again

Hiking

Pelle dropping in

Micke couloir skiing

Friday, February 11th, 2011

Les Droites – Ginat – Motorway up one of Chamonix’s classic north faces

Yesterday I did the Ginat on Les Droites with good friend and mountain guide Jimmy Halvardsson. It was a great day out on this 1200 m big ice and rock face. Over a month of good and stable weather has turned the route in to a must do at the moment with super great conditions making the route relatively easy.

The north face of Les Droites

We came up with the first bin in the morning, had a great climb, topped out in late afternoon, had a walk back to town and ended up at Chambre 9 for a couple jugs of water, and then I continued over, still in climbing clothes to Lapin Aigle for wine with friends from home.

Another great day in the mountains – thanks Jimmy!

If you want to hire a mountain guide, or just want to check out this awesome guy and great climber – visit Jimmy’s website at www.ascentdescent.com.

On the route we met friend and climber Korra Pesce who was out on just another adventure soloing the Jackson and then from the top down climbed (solo again of course) the Ginat. An impressive feat! To see an edit by Seb Montaz with this climber in action; click here.